Simers: Tim Flannery one of sports' good guys

Members of the Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, left, and Bob Weir, center, sing the national anthem alongside San Francisco Giants third base coach Tim Flannery before a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in San Francisco in Aug. 2011. Flannery wants to make sure everybody keeps supporting Bryan Stow, the fan who was brutally beaten outside Dodger Stadium opening day. Every penny he makes selling his new CD "Outside Lands" is also being donated to the Stow family. MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ, AP

We forget.

Tim Flannery does not.

I was in the Vin Scully Press Box at Dodger Stadium writing a routine story about an opening day ballgame while Bryan Stow was outside in the parking lot, his life about to change forever.

In the following year I’m sure I wrote something about Stow, Frank McCourt and going cheap on stadium security, but if I did, I don’t recall the details.

Flannery had been in the third base coaching box for the Giants on opening day, returning to the team hotel to later hear about the father of two, a paramedic from San Francisco who had been beaten outside of Dodger Stadium.

“He was a son, a husband, a father like me,’’ says Flannery, and so he says he doesn’t forget.

But life goes on. Three seasons have come and gone, and that’s too bad what happened to that Giants fan outside Dodger Stadium.

“I won’t say who said it,’’ Flannery says, “but there was someone in the Dodger organization who told me during batting practice one day it would have been easier if Bryan had just died and gone away.

“He told that to the wrong person.’’

Saturday night Flannery was going to be in Fallbrook doing a concert with friends to raise money for the Stow family. He spent $18,000 to produce a new CD, “Outside Lands,’’ and every penny earned now is also being donated to the Stow family.

As much as Flannery loves his job of occasionally waving a Giant home to score, he goes goose bumps on you when talking about his music.

“I tell stories, baseball songs without the bats and balls,’’ he says. “I wrote Hillbilly Rain from the third base coach’s box in Cincinnati. There was a steady rain, we weren’t scoring and I looked over the right-field wall into the Kentucky mountains where my family came from and wrote a song about my father.’’

People apparently love his music. He’s already raised more than $150,000, allowing the family to buy a wheel-chair accessible van.

“In the grand scheme with all the money owed to hospitals and everything else, maybe it’s a drop in the bucket,’’ Flannery says. “But at least they know someone cares.’’

Flannery has four more concerts scheduled for the San Francisco area later this month, and a promise from Giants pitcher Jeremy Affeldt to pitch in another $25,000.

“There is no more insurance, his rehab has suffered a setback after he was forced to go home and he’s looking at probably 12 more surgeries,’’ Flannery says. “What we help raise probably just keeps the lights on.’’

Stow’s head injuries will never allow him to be the same. The last update on the Stow website reads: “The other day we asked Bryan if he remembered why he had memory problems. He said, ‘Because I’m dumb.’ It broke our hearts and we just had to remind him that is not true and it’s not his fault.’’

There are a lot of prima donnas in sports. But the wonderful part of this job is meeting ordinary people who do the extraordinary and who are later shocked that anyone took notice.

I called Flannery because someone alerted me to his work with a guitar in hand. It was a great excuse to finally talk to him.

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